


Retrieved From Impossibility

by phnelt



Series: Leverage Works [10]
Category: Leverage
Genre: (eliot becomes a cyborg before the start of the story), AU, Brief Mind Control, Cyborgs, Dissociation, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22219486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phnelt/pseuds/phnelt
Summary: Parker knocked, and the door opened a crack and a tall man with dark eyes stared out at them.“You need to fix him,” Parker said, not bothering with hello.“Uh, I’m not a doctor?” The man sounded puzzled, and maybe a little freaked out.“You need to fix him,” Parker repeated and reached into her pocket. For a delirious second Eliot thought she was going to pull a gun, which was the last thing they needed right now, but she pulled out a stack of cash. A big stack. Parker never gave up her money for anything -- she’d made him pay for every meal they’d eaten, and that was what made him realise more than anything else.“I’m dying,” Eliot said, and then passed out.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Series: Leverage Works [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1432003
Comments: 45
Kudos: 328
Collections: Holly Poly 2019





	Retrieved From Impossibility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/gifts).



> For sunspot for Holly Poly, who requested: AUs, cyborgs, hurt/comfort, the OT3 being together, and competency.
> 
> Massive thanks to sapote for helping me chill out about this story and to Karios for being a magical cheerleader and beta.
> 
> This story goes Full Cyborg, so there are extra content notes at the end for anyone who wants them. There is no sexual violence in this story or threats of sexual violence.

Parker was attempting to drag Eliot down a Surrey street. The area was mostly warehouses, most of them empty, waiting to be turned into upscale condos, presumably with the original beams still exposed. Moving Eliot was proving difficult because Parker was five feet tall and Eliot’s bones were made of composite alloys that made him denser than his frame would suggest. Bones, Eliot was forced to recognise, that were no longer obeying him. The best he could do was try his best to stay upright so Parker would at least have a chance to get him where they were going. 

“It’s not much further,” she muttered, panting between each word. 

Eliot couldn’t nod, could barely grunt, energy diverted to focusing on not biting his own tongue off. Eliot knew how to take pain and give away nothing but his name, rank, and serial number, but it was hard, somehow harder, to know there was nothing he could say, no secret he could give up that would make the pain stop. He was just hurting, and there was no reason for it. 

After an age, but which was less than a city block, and during which Eliot lost his lunch twice, Parker dragged him up to a nondescript door that was like every door on every goddamn warehouse they’d passed, except this one had working video cameras watching it. 

She knocked, and the door opened a crack and a tall man with dark eyes stared out at them. 

“You need to fix him,” Parker said, not bothering with hello. 

“Uh, I’m not a doctor?” The man sounded puzzled, and maybe a little freaked out. 

“You need to fix him,” Parker repeated and reached into her pocket. For a delirious second, Eliot thought she was going to pull out a gun, which was the last thing they needed right now, but she pulled out a stack of cash instead. A big stack. Parker never gave up her money for anything -- she’d made him pay for every meal they’d eaten, and that was what made him realise more than anything else. 

“I’m dying,” Eliot said, and then passed out. 

*** 

He came to, lying on some sturdy wooden table in the middle of the warehouse. There were rows of them, all bolted to the floor, all of them empty. He tried to sit up but the man, a tech, Eliot had to assume, had a hand on him. “You’ll mess up my cables.” 

Eliot’s eyes darted around, taking in the cables that were attached to various parts of him. Pads on his skin and Hardison had found the port in his spine. And wasn’t that a familiar feeling? If it hadn’t been for the poor light and Parker’s bouncing ponytail, he could have been back in the lab. _Tell us if you can feel this, Sergeant._

Well, he definitely could feel it. The pain was still swamping him, coming from everywhere and nowhere, confusing his brain. It had taken him a long time to learn how to interpret the signals his manufactured parts would send. Pain was the body’s way of saying it was damaged, but it didn’t mean anything without information on what to do to make it stop. Pressure meant move away from the source of the force, cold meant he was probably leaking somewhere, and lightness meant some serious damage. In his case, no news was definitely bad news. But this kind of pain was alien, radiating as it was from no point in particular. 

“Who are you?” Eliot had to know. It just seemed polite to know the name of the man who held power of life and death over him. 

The man startled, fumbling his mouse for a second. All of the cables were plugged into a computer tower, clearly hastily set up near the table. Eliot could see the extension cords trailing off into the darkness. 

“I’m Alec Hardison,” he said. “And you are?” 

“He’s the best guy for this,” Parker said, appearing to stand next to Hardison. 

“I don’t know, man,” Hardison said, awkwardly glancing between Parker and Eliot. Parker had that effect on people; Eliot liked it. “I’m a hacker, really, but this is all a little beyond me.” Hardison turned back to stare at his computer screen and whistled. “The complexity of these systems, they way the signals translate into complex movements -- I can’t imagine. This has to be the most efficient code in the world. I have to say, whoever made you was an artist.” 

"No one _made_ me,” Eliot said, fighting to keep his breathing through the waves of pain. Fuck, this was worse than Myanmar. “I’m a person.” 

The tech, Hardison, patted him absently. “No, no, I’m with you, robots are definitely people. We all saw Blade Runner, they’re more people than people are.” 

Parker was frowning, perched on the other table. Eliot’s vision was swimming, but it didn’t take a high level of situational awareness to realise she was thinking about grabbing him and running. 

“I can’t run,” he said, gasping out the last word. 

Hardison looked up. “What does that have to...oh you’re doing some sort of freaky robot communication thing, aren’t you?” He turned to look at Parker. “No, he can’t run right now, the electrical impulses are misfiring like bananas, he’s just as likely for his legs to head off in separate directions. But I’m working on it. Give me some time and you can run off and be robots together.” 

“I’m not a robot,” Eliot and Parker said at the same time. 

“I’m all human,” she said, glaring wildly at Hardison. 

“I’m --” Eliot couldn’t explain, it was too hard, but he could show Hardison. Weakly, he struggled to lift the hem of his shirt. A second later, Parker was there, tugging on the hem for him. He collapsed a little. Parker was here, she knew what he needed. 

She got his shirt off, so soaked with sweat it made a slapping sound when it hit the table. Parker guided Hardison’s hand up, and Eliot knew when he felt it. Eliot’s fake skin felt mostly human, it was warm, and spongy, but on some level the mind knew it wasn’t real. And the muscle underneath was too hard because it wasn’t muscle at all, just hydraulics and ceramic plates, nanofibres carrying the signal from his brain downwards. But there were patches, along the ribs and the spine, that weren’t reconstructed. There was a reason for that, for the skin, it had something to do with the spine. The original techs could augment the spine so it could bear the load, but science wasn’t advanced enough for a spine to be fully replaced, it was too complex and fragile, the connections to the brain too hard to replicate. Critically, they had needed his brain intact, so that was all human too. 

If Hardison still wasn’t convinced Eliot wasn’t a robot, Eliot supposed he could split open his skull and flash his grey and white matter around, but that seemed a little involved for sitting on a cramped table in a soon-to-be-refurbished warehouse. 

“What…” Hardison said, tapping gently back and forth. Eliot tried to read it as Morse code. ‘M-E’ -- Hardison switched positions -- ‘J-I.’ Maybe it was a code, but it seemed random. Eliot had never been any good at cyphers anyway, and he was so tired. 

“Not a robot,” Eliot said, before feeling the blackness finally start to take him. Dimly, he felt Parker brace herself to hold him, and then he thankfully passed out. 

*** 

The first surprise was that he woke up at all. 

He had been thinking he was past a factory reset type situation, more of a return to be broken down into parts deal, but no, he seemed to be alive. He checked to see how his body was doing, without wanting to reveal his position. What could he tell about where he was? He listened to the signals from his body. 

Soft. He was on some sort of mattress, and there was a blanket on top of him. Pretty unusual. And the blanket was nice too, which ruled out the rehab facility, so odds were good he was still on the lam from the US government. Score one for Oklahoma. 

He looked for pain signals and was unsurprised to find that basically everywhere ached. Even his elbows, which were pure carbon fibre and titanium alloy, were managing to send off little signals that probably meant they needed to be stretched and rotated but that his body interpreted as ‘ow.’ ‘Ow’ was a good summary of his body overall. 

Fuck it. His body had told him all that it could. 

He opened his eyes. 

Parker was draped over a chair at his bedside. She had it flipped around and was folded over the top of it, arms dangling, cheek pressed against the top edge. That was going to leave a cheap chintz fabric imprint for sure. 

He smiled at her, helplessly. 

More surprising was that Hardison was at a desk in the corner, clacking away on a laptop, some gizmo with three antennas blinking next to him. 

Bland carpet, overly soft pillows, blackout curtains, all signs that they were in a hotel room. 

“Hi,” Eliot managed, barely a whisper. 

Parker snapped awake. 

“Here,” she said, shoving a Gatorade at Eliot’s face, turned totally upside down like he was a hamster. He still drank it. After downing it in one -- all of those Green Beret drinking games paying off -- she pulled back and he saw the flat of orange Gatorade next to the bed. She pulled the next one out. 

“I can drink it,” he said, and she looked at him, unimpressed. He lifted his arm -- ok, he tried to lift his arm. She waited him out patiently, and then shook the Gatorade at him, not so patiently. “Fine,” he said. 

Two Gatorades and some sort of emergency ration milkshake later, she sat back, satisfied. 

Hardison had given up the pretense of working on his code and had just turned around to stare at them. Eliot couldn’t tell if he was staring more at Eliot or Parker. 

“Enjoying the show?” Eliot asked, raising an eyebrow, and almost embarrassingly glad he could raise an eyebrow. 

“This is by far not the weirdest porn I’ve ever watched,” Hardison said, unabashed. 

Parker whipped her head around to glare at Hardison and caught Eliot in the face with her ponytail. Ponytail burn was not his favourite. He wondered if his hair would ever get long enough for him to do it to himself. Growing his hair out had been a big ‘fuck you’ to his handlers. Hardison had been messing with him though, when Eliot was out, he could have done anything. Concentrating hard, Eliot lifted an arm and managed to get it on top of his head. His hair was still there. 

Inexplicably, Eliot felt tears rush to his eyes. 

He was alive. He was himself. And he was free. 

He didn’t know how he'd gotten this lucky, but he was so damn grateful. So unspeakably, profoundly grateful. He offered up a supplication to whatever divine force had delivered him -- Parker. He wouldn’t have made it except for Parker. Parker had dragged him, carried him, and refused to leave him. She put herself in danger. 

“Thank you,” Eliot said. 

Parker looked down at him quizzically. 

“I’m alive,” he explained. She beamed at him. 

“Yeah, and I’ve got some questions about that.” Hardison said. “Namely, how?” 

“Well, I was hoping you could tell me, since you’re the one with the freaky spy gear over there.” 

Hardison glanced over. “Oh, this? This is just my internet hookup, gotta keep it fast and secure, you feel?” 

Since Eliot mostly used the internet to google cute cat videos for Parker, he did not really feel. 

Hardison was talking again. “And we’ll get back to that, but I mean, originally. How are you alive?” 

Eliot was kind of baffled. He tried to struggle towards a sitting up posture, but Parker gently tapped him on the shoulder and he gave in. _Ok, not at this time._ “You believed I was a robot, but not this?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

_Fair enough,_ Eliot thought. He supposed Hardison did deserve some sort of an explanation, and since Parker wasn’t displaying any knives, Hardison must have done something to convince her he wasn’t an imminent threat. “You can probably guess the shape of it. I got blown up, the army wasn’t done with me yet, they did some science, now my blood doesn’t just carry oxygen, it carries electrical impulses for my cyborg bits.” Eliot had learned a lot, but the weirdest things were all stuff the body does naturally, like apparently blood was already conductive. Who knew? 

“But how do you…” Hardison waved at him. 

Eliot stared back. 

“He has a uranium core, like the Terminator,” Parker said, helpfully. 

“I am aware of the Terminator,” Hardison said. Eliot hoped he wasn’t going to faint. 

“Are you going to faint?” Parker demanded. 

“No, it’s just...It’s one thing to read conspiracy blogs about freaky government attempts to make super soldiers, and it’s another to have one show up at your doorstep and vomit up Spaghettios.” 

Eliot grimaced, remembering the taste of Spaghettios. Parker had been doing her best, but they were so slimy they shouldn’t count as food. 

“Well, I’m real,” Eliot said, hoping to get Hardison past this phase. “And apparently still here, minus the spaghetti. Can you tell me if I’m going to stay that way?” Now that the euphoria of not being dead had worn off, the powerlessness had crept back in. He didn’t know why his systems collapsed, and he didn’t know how to prevent that from happening again. 

“I’m working on that,” Hardison said, not very reassuring. Something must have come through in Eliot’s affect -- Eliot’s not sure what, since his whole body was doing a damp noodle impersonation, but enough that Hardison said, “Oh! You’re not in imminent danger. Someone launched a malware attack on you, basically. It should have killed you, but it looks like life finds a way.” Hardison stared at them expectantly. Parker and Eliot looked at each other. “Ok, not Jurassic Park fans then. Anyway, I am currently figuring out who,” Hardison gestured to his laptop vaguely, “and how they introduced the malware to your system.” 

“Can you do that?” Parker asked. She was sipping her own Gatorade. Belatedly, Eliot wondered how long he’d been there. Last thing he remembered, he was in a warehouse, brain melting out of his ears. Now he was in a hotel room and the Gatorade was staying down nicely. Probably some time had passed. 

“Have you eaten?” He asked Parker. 

She shrugged. 

Eliot cursed. “Can we get some room service or will that destroy your opsec?” 

Both Hardison and Parker blinked at him, confused, but eventually he got them to call down for something hearty. 

“But yeah,” Hardison said, “I can figure out who did this to Eliot. Every coder has their idiosyncrasies, and every path an executable takes leaves its traces. This one is unusual cause it’s a hardware attack, but a virus is a virus.” He pointed at himself, “And baby, I am the virus king.” His smile faded. “That wasn’t as impressive as I wanted it to be.” 

*** 

A flat of Gatorade and some overly garlicky mashed potatoes later, Eliot had achieved a major victory in the war against his own body and had managed to sit up. 

Hardison had stared at him the whole time he’d been eating his mashed potatoes. Finally, Eliot had gotten frustrated and glared at him and he’d looked down. Since then, he’d been totally normal, and Eliot started to think this might work. Eliot was used to being a fascination but it got tiring fast. 

Parker had made a tower out of her mashed potatoes and was racing the peas down the side, which got Eliot thinking. 

“We need to get a real base, with a kitchen.” 

“A kitchen?” Hardison acted like he’d never heard the word. 

“Yeah, you know, a place where people make food that doesn’t have the same salt content as the Atlantic ocean? A kitchen, Hardison.” It felt good to get annoyed again, Eliot could feel himself warming into it. 

Hardison rolled his eyes. “Ok, let me rephrase, ‘we?’ as in, including me?” 

Parker looked up sharply, peas rolling off her plate. 

Eliot cursed himself. He’d just been floating along, but of course Hardison would want to get clear as fast as possible. Of course, no one would want to stick around, he didn’t understand why Parker had for this long. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hardison continued, “I would love to get in on this freaky situation, do you know how rare it is to get a puzzle this good? I just figured you’d want to, you know, sneak off into the night.” 

“Well, we don’t,” Parker said, and left the room. 

That left Eliot and Hardison staring at each other. 

“Where did she go?” 

“Probably to get ourselves a house,” Eliot guessed. 

Hardison barked a laugh. “See, this is why I thought you had psychic robot communication.” Eliot remembered that, vaguely, from back in the warehouse. Hardison tilted his eyebrow curiously, “how long have y’all been together?” 

Eliot thought back, calculating that he hadn’t been out for more than a day or so. “Two weeks? Maybe?” That sounded right. 

Hardison sat upright. “Really?” 

Eliot was immediately suspicious. “Why do you ask?” 

“I just thought…” Hardison pressed his lips together. “Nevermind.” 

*** 

The house Parker found was fully detached, and vacant, some byproduct of Russian money laundering -- the south of England was full of places like these. Eliot barely had to lean on Hardison to get inside, so that was progress, and with a couple of taps on his keys, Hardison had power and water hooked up to the place. 

Eliot celebrated by ending up in a heated whispered argument with Parker about whether he could drive to the supermarket by himself. Eliot’s argument was that _barely_ needing to lean on Hardison meant he was completely fit for this task, while Parker’s argument rested on him almost dying two days before. 

Unfortunately, because Parker had lifted the car keys from Eliot once she figured out his plan, she was winning. 

“Uh, guys, not to interrupt,” Hardison waved his hands at them, “whatever this is, but I got a ping.” 

Eliot stopped trying to grab for the keys. “Did we get a name?” 

Hardison shook his head. “That’s where it got weird.” 

*** 

“So the code has been inside me the whole time?” Eliot felt his breath get sharp and he didn’t know why. 

Hardison pointed at something on the screen, nodding. “Dormant though, yeah. Someone needed to activate it.” 

“So someone did this on purpose,” Parker said. 

Parker was looking at him, eyes hard. He knew she was waiting for direction from him but he couldn’t--he just needed to keep breathing. 

“Yeah,” Hardison said, heavy. “You got any idea who would want to do that?” 

There were so many people in the world who would be happy to hear that Eliot Spencer was gone. The faces of so many people spitting ‘I will kill you’ as they were dragged away. Eliot had been a rendition and retrieval specialist for chrissakes, of course people wanted to kill him. But they didn’t have to. It turned out the poison had been inside him the whole time, inside this body that was his but had never belonged to him. 

“Who had access?” Eliot clung to Parker’s voice. “It’s like when I plan a robbery”-- Eliot ignored Hardison’s voice in the background going ‘wait, you’re _that_ Parker?’ -- “everyone wants the thing, but it’s the getting it that is the trick.” Parker squared her shoulders. “Stop looking at me, I’m not wrong.” 

Eliot shook his head slowly, “You are not wrong,” he murmured. 

“I think we need more information about where you came from.” Hardison’s voice was kind, but Eliot just kept shaking his head. 

He didn’t want to think about it. He’d been prepared to give his life for his country, but he hadn’t known there was more they could take from him than that until he’d woken up -- for the loosest possible definition of woken up -- after hitting that IED. That was when he’d known that they’d just begun with him. 

*** 

They moved into the living room, still staged like the real estate agent would have left it, packed with inexplicable poufs that made good perching places for Parker. 

Eliot settled himself and licked his lips. 

“Do you want a drink?” Hardison interrupted Eliot’s attempt to gather his thoughts. 

Eliot shook his head. “It doesn’t work on me.” Insult on injury, that one. 

Hardison looked intrigued, “Why not?” 

“My body consumes the nitrogen that makes the feeling of drunkenness. I can’t get the bends, either. I can still get hungover, though.” 

“Ouch,” Hardison said, wincing, and weirdly enough it made Eliot feel better, more ready to talk. 

So he explained the way the army had told him they weren’t done with him, and the parade of scientists and technicians who had been in charge of him. He didn’t explain what it felt like, how he’d had to learn to re-walk, to talk without lungs or a diaphragm, how absolutely everything about him was scanned and computed and analysed until he felt stripped of more than his body but of his privacy and dignity too, nothing more than a freak experiment with some interesting results. Everyone in that lab had access to him, as much as they wanted. 

But that wasn’t enough. 

Eliot told them about his new orders, how he was sent out into the world. But he couldn’t be a regular soldier anymore, of course not. He had special missions, the type they could only send someone on who they thoroughly owned. He’d had a few commanders during that time, giving him orders, so presumably they had the codes. 

All in all, it wasn’t a short list. 

“Right,” Hardison said, “I can pull those names, see if the names raise any flags.” 

Hardison made to stand up, but Parker waved a hand. “What about after? Since you don’t work for them anymore?” 

Eliot looked at her, pleading. “He wouldn’t have the information.” 

Parker wouldn’t budge. “I think it’s a mistake not to look.” Then her voice got all quiet, “Eliot, you could have died.” 

“You don’t think I know that?” In the silence, he realised his voice had cracked a little. Sighing, he scrubbed his hands over his face. 

“After, there weren’t a lot of jobs out there for me, so I floated around for a bit. Recently, I,” he swallowed, “ended up working for Damien Moreau.” 

Eliot had kept his eyes on Hardison so he saw his reaction, the flinch, the panic, the beginnings of the realisation of just what type of shit he’d gotten himself into. 

“But then you quit,” Parker interjected. Parker turned to look at Hardison. “I was casing out Moreau’s place in the French Riviera. Eliot caught me; he could have turned me in, but instead he helped me out.” 

“You _stole_ from Damien Moreau?” Hardison sounded scandalised. 

Parker smiled, dimples appearing out of nowhere. “Yeah. He super deserved it.” 

“No doubt, woman.” Hardison, still looking a little shocked, just kept blinking. “Ok, well, I’m going to put those numbers into the system. And, and, Damien Moreau, also.” It wasn’t open arms and cheerful acceptance, but it wasn’t screaming and running from the room either, so Eliot would take it. 

“And I’m going to go get groceries.” 

Parker opened her mouth to argue but Eliot just glared at her. He needed this one thing. 

“I’ll drive,” she said and it was proof that Eliot had learned nothing because he just let her. 

*** 

The less said about the trip to the store, the better. But now Eliot had the makings for a chili and he was chopping away at some celery. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Eliot didn’t startle when Hardison asked because the man moved with the stealth of an elephant; Eliot had heard him tromping from all the way down the hall. 

“You can ask,” Eliot said evenly. The chopping was meditative but Eliot was still feeling just this side of scoured and wasn’t in the mood to get prodded. 

“Well, maybe I don’t want to with you holding what looks like a very sharp knife.” 

Eliot just smiled humourlessly. “Depends on the way I’m holding it.” 

“What?” 

“Nevermind. What’s your question?” 

“What’s your obsession with cooking?” 

Eliot looked him up and down, but he seemed sincere. “What do you mean?” 

“You wanted us to get this house, you made Parker drag you through the store, and now you’re having to sit down to chop but you’re still doing it. If I were you I’d be making people bring me pizza in bed for the rest of my life. So, what gives?” 

_Gee, Hardison, why might it be nice for me to have a reminder that I’m still human?_ “We all gotta eat, don’t we?” 

Hardison snorted. “I suppose that’s fair.” 

“Here,” Eliot said, kicking out a chair, “You can help with the onions.” 

“Oh I see how it is. This is punishment, isn’t it?” 

Eliot blinked at him innocently, doing his best Parker impression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

*** 

Eliot was awake before he knew what he’d heard. The sky was dark, starting to turn to gray and a moment later Parker was whispering, “Eliot, I --” 

That was as far as she got before the interior wall of the bedroom exploded. 

As anyone who had ever attempted to infiltrate a building knew, doorways and stairwells were choke-points. They were reinforced, easy to booby-trap and everyone had their attention on them. But interior walls? Floors? They were mostly empty space with the occasional stud, trivial to slice through with the right equipment. The Israelis had established the technique in Lebanon, but it had been honed since then, a lateral movement pattern that tunneled buildings like termite colonies, leaving the outside standing as a shell, deceptively intact. 

Eliot was on the receiving end of that approach now. Before he had to think about it, he was across the room, throwing the stun grenade into the face of the second guy. It took him down, creating a barrier between the first guy and the rest of the group. Which meant Eliot could grab the poor sucker who came through first, neutralise him, and use him as a shield. 

Barely ten seconds and it was done, four guys on the floor and Eliot didn’t particularly care if they were breathing, in fact he was pretty sure at least one wasn’t, fatality from some Eliot-assisted friendly fire. 

He turned back to look at Parker. Speaking at the same time they said, “Hardison.” 

Eliot just pointed at her as he ran out through the convenient new exit point, “Car!” 

Then he was sliding into the backs of the men down the hall, too close quarters for them to use their guns. Too many people nowadays only knew how to engage at a distance, when everyone knew that a gun was ineffective at a range less than five feet. Which these fuckers were learning, to their detriment. 

Or maybe they just hadn’t known he could move that fast. Faulty intel and bad training were the two most effective killers there were. 

Eliot stepped over the body of the one who’s helmet he’d shattered, black shards of the faceplate crunching into the floor. His fingers were still twitching, but Eliot ignored him, crossing the room to get close to Hardison. 

Luckily for everyone, he seemed unharmed. Hardison made a picture though, in his Batman boxers, clutching his laptop to his chest like a shield. Eliot snorted. 

“You hurt?” Eliot asked, ruffling his hand over the back of Hardison’s head just to be sure. 

“No! I mean, yes!” Hardison’s eyes were round and gleaming. “You just went through those guys like _butter,_ man, _butter.”_

Eliot eyed him appraisingly. He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad and whether Hardison was about to go into shock or not. Either way, they had to start moving. 

“Can you walk?” 

Eliot thought the question was pretty clear but Hardison stared at him for a second, licking his lips before he said, “Yes.” 

Eliot nodded, and grabbing Hardison firmly by the elbow, walked him out the front door and pushed him into the back seat of the car Parker had idling on the curb. It was different than the one they’d driven in. Good. 

He’d barely clicked the door shut when she peeled away from the curb. 

There was silence for a moment, just the murmur of the engine, but it didn’t last. 

“Can we talk about how those guys were trying to kill us?” Hardison’s voice rose dangerously high on that last word. 

“They weren’t trying to kill us,” Eliot reassured him. Parker shifted into a higher gear. 

“It seemed like they were for sure trying to do that, Eliot. I don’t know what kind of life you’ve been leading, but that is not how people say hi!” 

Eliot squinted at the road. 

“If they were trying to kill us, we’d be dead. I’ve done enough rendition jobs to know the difference. They had flashbangs, and oh yeah, they breached inside instead of firebombing the house.” 

“I know you think you’re being comforting, but you’re not,” Hardison grumbled. 

“You don’t have to stay in the car,” Parker shot back, “I can let you out any time.” She took one hand off the wheel to gesture and Eliot started looking nervously at the road. “I can slow down to 10, 15 miles an hour. If you tucked your head in, you could roll away and be fine.” 

Hardison’s mouth was hanging open like he realised Parker was not joking. “No, I’m good back here,” he said finally, looking out the window. 

The conversation got Eliot thinking though: there was no reason he had to drag anyone down with him. His dad had always told him he was selfish, and wasn’t this just the worst example? All of this fuss, just for him. And sure, they’d paid Hardison for his time, but what about Parker? He owed her more than he could ever repay. 

Eliot lowered his voice. “I could get out.” 

Parker whipped her head around to stare at him while still doing 70 on the motorway. If Eliot hadn’t had a bionic heart, he would have definitely had palpitations. “What?” She asked, too loud, and Eliot winced. 

“I’m bringing a world of problems to your door, and you didn’t sign on for any of that. I don’t want you…” he trailed off, unsure of what to finish with. Beholden? That didn’t feel right. 

Parker shrugged, “Don’t think about it too hard. I just do what feels right.” 

“And hanging out with me while I pass out on you and get shot at feels right?” 

“If it makes you feel better, I promise I will let you know the moment I don’t want to be around anymore, probably by leaving.” 

Eliot barked out a laugh. 

Parker smiled, then let it fade. Suddenly serious, she said, “It just seemed like they were trying to keep you in a box,” Eliot’s breath caught, “and no one should be trapped like that. I didn’t like it.” Then she got upbeat. “Besides, we worked well together and it was fun!” She punctuated the sentiment with a punch to his shoulder. Well, alright then. 

They drove for about an hour til Parker determined that they were in a suitable spot and they found one of those uniquely British bed-sits, with odd corners and carpeting everywhere and every room equipped with a kettle but no mugs. Luckily this one had a hot plate. Eliot poked at the room a bit more. Oh, and an abandoned can of beans, only slightly expired. Exciting. 

Parker gave Hardison and Eliot a pat on the arm, then turned on her heel, “Be right back!” and she was gone. 

That left Hardison and Eliot staring at each other in the cramped, slightly musty space. 

“Want to take a nap?” Eliot asked, gesturing at the floral bedspread. 

“Hell no, I don’t think I’ve ever been this keyed up in my life -- and one time I had to finish out a raid while my computer was _literally_ on fire. Did you know that if you can keep the fan going the CPU won’t shut down? ‘Cause I do.” 

That was some gibbering, but the gist Eliot got was that Hardison did not want a nap. 

“Are you, uh,” Hardison said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away. His eyes kept flicking to Eliot’s mouth, then his shoulders, then back up to his eyes. 

_Oh,_ Eliot thought. This put all of Hardison’s intense staring from the last couple of days into perspective. Looking back, it had been a little much for someone with a fascination with robotics. Hardison had treated his body like a puzzle, but one that Eliot was a partner in solving. 

Eliot took stock of himself, considering. He was feeling pretty good, and Hardison was surprisingly fit. Besides, Eliot had had a shitty morning, something good would be a welcome change. 

“Why not,” he muttered, and slung an arm out to pull Hardison in. 

Hardison made a startled noise -- like he wasn’t the one who started this, but then got with the program quickly, kissing Eliot clumsily while he feebly tried to work the button on his pants. 

“Let me help you with that,” Eliot said, sinking down to his knees to liberate Hardison of his pants. And then he was there anyway so he licked a slow hot stripe up Hardison’s cock, which was hardening nicely. 

“Goddamn,” Hardison groaned, and before Eliot could really go to town, Hardison did a graceful crumple to end up on the floor with Eliot. After that it was all hot, moving bodies. 

*** 

Eventually they made it to the bed and Eliot was lying there, idly scratching his chest. Hardison’s skin had felt so real, the imperfections and mixed textures of it. Hardison had rough elbows and soft wrists and the skin right behind his ear was hotter than the skin that covered his ankles. Touching Hardison felt dangerous, like he could get used to it. 

“Can I ask a personal question?” Hardison asked. 

Eliot raised an eyebrow at him that encompassed their shared nudity and physical proximity. 

“Point taken.” Hardison said. Then paused. “So, uh,” Hardison waved a hand over Eliot’s dick. 

Eliot took pity on him. “Not initially. I asked for an upgrade.” He hadn’t even needed to argue for it. Everyone had agreed that this was a necessary component for his optimal functioning. 

Hardison’s face flashed between several expressions. “I’m trying to imagine…” 

“Yes, there were meetings about it.” All of the techs tried to pretend this was totally normal, just like any other meeting they’d had about whether Eliot should have lasers in his forearms or how much impact his reinforced legs should be able to take. But Colonel Vance couldn’t help crossing his legs and wincing every time they brought up the attachment process, which was still deeply hilarious to Eliot even years later. 

Hardison was blinking. “That’s a lot.” 

“Tell me about it,” Eliot said. His whole existence was half weird science, half farce. Then he got up and went to poke at the hotplate, sliding some boxers on as he went. He probably couldn’t get burned, but he’d learned early -- no boxers, no bacon. He was trying to understand why it didn’t bother him when Hardison asked him questions about how he was put together. He’d spent so much effort trying not to think about it and yet. Somehow talking to Hardison felt normal, like he was asking Eliot how he took his coffee, rather than how he got his dick attached. 

Parker burst in a minute later and immediately took in the scene. Hardison, clutching at the sheet and squawking while Eliot stirred a can of beans with a single chopstick. 

She turned to Eliot and said, “You can stop doing that, I brought bagels.” 

“Fantastic,” he said, flicking off the hotplate. Hardison had given up trying to cover himself and was just muttering a little. Eliot was somewhat horrified to realise that he found it to be soothing background noise. 

Parker put some cream cheese on a bagel half and handed it over to Eliot while she worked on her own. “So,” Parker said, looking them over meaningfully, “How was it? The sex, I mean. Was it good?” 

Eliot thought about messing with Hardison for a second but elected not to. Hardison had been surprisingly satisfying. He wasn’t timid and he didn’t just lay back. Whenever Eliot had arched into something, Hardison said, ‘like that?’ and then just zeroed in until Eliot had been forced to admit that _yes, there, right there._ And then Hardison hadn’t let up, wrapping Eliot around him like silly putty. 

So he was honest with Parker.“Yeah, actually.” 

Parker made a thoughtful noise. “That’s nice. I’m glad you had a good time.” She genuinely was happy for them. This was something Eliot appreciated about Parker, how much she wanted the people around her to be having a good time, with few of the hangups that would prevent that from happening. 

“Ex _cuse_ me?” Hardison said, affronted. “I am in the room! And, even if I wasn’t,” he was pointing his finger vigorously, “that would be very personal, and, and personal!” 

“I know you’re in the room,” Parker said, “That’s why I brought you a bagel.” She handed a half to Hardison. 

He stared at it. “I don’t understand my life,” Hardison said, taking it from her and accepting the little pat on the arm she gave him. 

*** 

Parker had also brought Hardison some pants, probably stolen from close to whatever place the bagels came from. So, he ended up in a polo and some khakis like he’d snuck out from some expensive prep school. And she’d gotten herself a new jacket, a black one with buckles that looked devastatingly good on her. It left Eliot feeling a little underdressed in his tac gear with artfully distressed knees. Then Parker threw a polo shirt at his head and he decided that the militiaman look was the better part of valour. 

“We need a plan,” Hardison said, munching on his bagel. 

“We need a target,” Parker said. 

“Come on, it’s got to be Moreau,” Hardison said around half-chewed bagel. “Those guys were well-equipped.” 

Eliot had been thinking about this. “Killing me, maybe, that sounds like him, but why try to grab me this morning? It doesn’t make sense.” 

Hardison frowned thoughtfully as he took this in. 

“The malware didn’t kill you, though,” Hardison observed. 

“But it was supposed to, right?” It was just a statement of fact, Eliot didn’t understand why both Hardison and Parker threw looks at him. 

“Do you think it was the people who did the science on you? Is that your theory?” Parker asked, after an awkward silence. 

Eliot shrugged. They did put it in his body. 

Hardison drummed his fingers on the table. “None of the other names you gave me showed any travel activity to Europe, or any suspiciously large money transfers. I don’t know, man, I think you have to explain why you think they might.” 

Eliot clenched his hand into a fist. He could feel the metal in the tips of his fingers pressing inexorably into plates in his hands -- immovable objects, etc. There was no give there. 

Parker was still staring at him. “You ran away ages ago, right? Why would they come for you now?” Jesus, were they ganging up on him? What was this, an ambush? 

“I didn’t run away from the government,” he said, each word fighting him. 

Eliot didn’t want to think about this. And that was all he had, wasn’t it? His thoughts, his brain the only thing still human. Everything else was on display, all of his inner workings visible to anyone with a fucking USB port. He shouldn’t have to talk about this if he didn’t want to. 

His brain was telling him that his fingers hurt now, a memory of when too much pressure caused pain, and like most things his brain tried to interpret, a lie. He couldn’t hurt himself like this -- he was stress-tested to a thousand Megapascals. 

“Why are you even helping me?” Eliot bit out. “This situation is clearly compromised, and you’re clear of immediate danger. You could just go.” Somewhere else where they wouldn’t be poking under rocks that were best left undisturbed. His daddy had always told him to leave those shady places alone so he didn’t get bit. 

“I cannot tell you how much I _can’t_ do that,” Hardison said, shaking his head. “If I left you and you got dead my Nana would teleport from across the ocean to shame me.” 

Eliot turned to Parker, of the two of them she had the most sense. She had her arms folded, bad sign. “I don’t like the way they’re treating you.” And then she stopped. Eliot waited, but it didn’t seem like anything else was coming, and the tilt of her jaw made him not want to ask. She had her own reasons and Eliot didn’t have a right to them. 

Which, fine. Eliot guessed they were going to have to do this the hard way. 

“They sold me first,” he repeated, more normally, “Then I ran away.” 

*** 

It was Colonel Vance who broke the news. Eliot had just come back to the base from Kiev and hosed himself down. He hated it when he had bits of bone in his hair. He was on his way to check in with the techs -- SOP after every mission, checking for wear and tear on the hardware, but Vance had stopped him on his way to the lab and told him with no fanfare. 

He got why when he’d still stumbled into the lab on autopilot and Dr. Detmar carefully explained all of the equipment, tools, and maintenance steps that were necessary for Eliot’s continued functioning. On a normal day, he might have tuned it out, but on that day, he got the message. Be patient. Listen up. 

The next morning they packed him up for shipping and Eliot stayed alert. They put him on a plane, and he waited. When they landed at a private airport in Hong Kong, Dr. Detmar made a big show of bumping against him and awkwardly handing him a car key. 

Still, Eliot waited until the exchange was over. Some flunky handed over a briefcase, Vance gestured at Eliot, and Eliot stepped forward. 

It wasn’t until Vance’s plane took off that Eliot seized his moment, easily taking out his new owner’s escort. Walking away from the bodies on the floor, he started pressing the fob buttons on the car keys until one beeped at him. Jumping into the sedan, he peeled away and set himself the goal of getting lost in the city. 

He’d found a tenement to hole up in, a massive complex the size of a small city, sky blotted out by hanging laundry and awnings and billboards, and he’d waited. He’d hidden out among the African merchants and Indonesian domestic labourers and eked by on the edges with the asylum seekers with no recognised status. 

After three weeks, he knew no one was coming back for him. 

*** 

When Eliot said the word ‘sold,’ Parker made a hissing noise like the sound of a rattlesnake’s tail. And much like the snake, he knew that one boded danger, and it was nice to think that he wasn’t on the end of that warning call. 

He clammed up after that, staring at the water stain patterns in the ceiling while Parker and Hardison whispered around him. 

Then Parker poked him in the cheek, hard. “Ow,” he said, mildly. 

“You can stop waiting for death now, we have a plan.” 

“I wasn’t --” he bit his tongue, trying to avoid devolving into a child’s argument, “what’s the plan?” 

Hardison spread his hands wide, “We hack Damien Moreau.” 

The hell? Why had Eliot bared his soul like that? 

“Think about it: the man has been involved in every major illicit arms deal in the last decade. If he wasn’t directly involved in your -- “ Hardison cut himself off, “if he wasn’t involved, then he’ll still have a record of it.” Hardison was gesturing now, big swoops of his hands, and Parker was nodding along. Eliot felt unaccountably relieved. This was the stupidest plan he’d ever heard, but at least they’d listened to him, after all. 

“How are you going to get to him, genius?” Eliot asked, embarrassed about the hoarseness in his voice. 

“He’s in town,” Parker said and tactfully looked away while Eliot reacted to that news. 

*** 

Well, stupid plan or not, it was what they were going with. Hardison needed supplies though, and Parker needed climbing rigs, so a morning that started out with them getting rudely awoken turned into a shopping day. Granted they were shopping for some less than common items, but Eliot still found himself marveling about the twists and turns of life while watching Parker compare different weights of climbing rope. 

Periodically, she’d turn to Eliot and ask his opinion -- like he had one -- each time increasingly convincing the shop clerk that this was part of a kinky sex thing. 

“Ooh, what about this one! It’s purple!” Parker said, laying the rope against her skin. It did look nice. Parker was so pale and the contrast was dramatic. Eliot heard the clerk let out an honest-to-God giggle, which was the last straw for Eliot. 

“Yep, that’s it, let’s go,” he said, and hustled them out of the store. 

As soon as they got outside, Parker turned to him, smiling with huge dimples and pulling coils of rope and carabiners out of various pockets and places, including one out of Eliot’s BDU thigh pockets. He had not even noticed her planting it. 

A suspicion formed in the back of his mind. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” He’d thought she was innocently excited to get new rope, but now he had to wonder. 

“Did what?” She asked, distractedly testing out knots. 

*** 

They got back to their hotel and they were barely in the room before Parker pulled her shirt off. 

Eliot was rolling his neck as part of his daily diagnostics but when he saw her shirt hit the floor he paused, head cocked to the right. 

“Parker?” Hardison asked, tentative, from the edge of the bed, and Eliot couldn’t blame him. Hardison had thought she was a robot when he first met her, and Eliot understood why. But Parker wasn’t a robot, she wasn’t even a cyborg, like Eliot; she was just a person who Eliot didn’t understand all of the time, but who knew herself. 

Eliot sure wasn’t going to second guess her. 

She looked over at Hardison like an idea had just occurred to her. “Unless you’re only into robots?” 

“I’m not--” Hardison seemed to realise what he was saying and corrected himself. “I’m not _only--”_

Eliot smiled at him lazily, all teeth, and Hardison swallowed. 

“I’m into lots of things,” Hardison managed, clinging to his dignity with both fists. 

“Cool,” Parker said, and stepped into his personal space. Hardison’s hands came up to rest on her hips, careful, but not even shaking a little. 

“Do you want me to go?” Eliot asked. 

“Why would I want that?” Parker asked, head cocked, a mirror of where Eliot had been when he’d seen her shirt land. 

Hardison reached out a hand, and Eliot let himself be drawn in towards the both of them. 

*** 

After that, Hardison passed out. He had had a very big day. Hardison was out like a rock, though, mouth open, body sinking into the uneven springs of the cheap mattress. 

Eliot turned to face Parker, reaching out to trace the curve of her shoulder. Her skin pebbled, cold, in the path his fingers left. 

“Parker,” he whispered. 

“Yeah, Eliot?” 

“If this doesn’t --” She rolled her eyes and started to roll over and he snapped out his hand, just a hair faster than human baseline and grabbed her hand gently, so gently. “I need you to get you and Hardison out safe.” 

Her eyes were almost gray in the half-light and he could read the trouble in them, like lightning clouds on the horizon. The storms he grew up with in Oklahoma were biblical, clouds filling the horizon as far as the eye could see, nothing to stop them but the curve of the horizon, and that’s what Parker’s gaze promised now. But they had to talk about this. 

“Why are you telling me this?” 

He grimaced, knowing how unfair it was. “I know that you can make the tough call. If it’s unsalvageable. He can’t.” She huffed a breath. He tried to smile a little, softening it. “I mean, look at him, you dropped a half- dead cyborg on his doorstep and now he’s on the run. Those are not good self-preservation instincts.” 

The set of her jaw was argumentative. “I was right there next to him.” 

Eliot stroked his hand down to her wrist where he could feel her pulse, quick, but even. With his grip loose around her wrist, he drew her hand to his mouth. Murmuring against her palm he asked, “Promise me?” He pressed a kiss to the flesh of her palm, feeling the strength there. “I need to know you’ll be ok.” 

Parker stroked his cheek with her fingers before she pulled her hand back. “We wouldn’t be ok if we lost you,” she said, “but I promise.” 

*** 

“It’s still freaky that you need to sleep and clearly have dreams and stuff,” Hardison observed, eating handfuls of Lucky Charms from the bag. 

Eliot was still chasing the cobwebs of the dream away. “Human brain, remember? Brains need to do that for some inexplicable reason.” 

“Defragging,” Parker said, nodding. 

Hardison looked her up and down. “Are you just using random computer words to turn me on? Because it is working.” 

Hardison leaned down for a kiss and she gave it. Eliot just chuckled and went off to shower. 

*** 

The plan, which was a stupid plan, at least had the virtue of being simple. Parker was going to infiltrate Moreau’s house and stick a USB into Moreau’s computer. This should rootkit the device to allow Hardison to remote into it. Apparently it was very hard to access the thing remotely, but computers were very weak to physically being compromised. 

The bonus of this plan was that Hardison would hang back to monitor the signal while Eliot covered Parker’s exit. 

Naturally, because the universe never missed a chance to fuck with Eliot Spencer, the plan went to shit immediately. 

Eliot had just given Parker a boost up the trellis when Hardison’s tinny voice came over the cheap headsets that he’d bought them as part of his spygear shopping spree the day before. 

“Uh, guys?” Hardison said. “Moreau is here.” 

Eliot had to press the earpiece in to hear him. “Yeah, and?” That’s why they were doing this, right? 

“No, I mean, he’s here, as in, he’s inside the house.” Eliot felt his stomach go cold. “You need to get out.” Hardison’s voice had a distinct edge to it, but Eliot was already running forward, impotently. 

“I was just, uh, looking for the restroom,” Parker’s voice came through the coms. 

Eliot felt a howl trying to crawl its way out of his chest. 

“Eliot!” Hardison said, in the tone of voice of a man who had been saying it for a while, “You can’t just run in, you need a plan.” 

“I have a plan,” Eliot said, grim. 

*** 

“I’m Eliot Spencer.” 

“Walking up to a guard and giving him your name is _not_ a plan.” Eliot could almost hear Hardison rubbing his hand over his face. “Alright, I’m working on finding you an exit, you just...yeah.” 

Eliot felt his lips twitch, even though heEliot wasn’t even thinking about exfiltration. He just had to get to Parker. 

The goons showed him directly into Damien’s study, a heavy oak and leather themed room. Eliot didn’t let his eyes flick to where Parker was sitting, pressed into a stuffed chair, leaning away from Damien who was perched on the desk in front of her. 

Damien pushed off the desk and took two strides towards Eliot, arms wide. The goon who had been gripping his arm dropped it. _Shitty threat assessment, pal,_ Eliot thought. Only a fool took their cues from the protectee. A universal truth about being a bodyguard was that the person who you were trying to keep alive had terrible survival instincts. Being a bodyguard was about realising that fact, and acting accordingly. 

“Eliot, at long last.” Damien clapped his hands together. “I wondered when you would be coming after your little pet here.” He looked over at Parker and Eliot gave up the fiction and let himself look her over as much as he wanted. Looked like no one had roughed her up. Good. Her headset was missing though, which was unfortunate. 

“I don’t get you, Damien, I barely worked for you.” 

Damien’s eyes sharpened. “You don’t understand? You _belong_ to me. You’re mine by right and in the eyes of your sainted US government. There was simply a delay between payment and receipt.” 

Eliot’s body rejected that information, a visceral recoiling that went past choice. But it explained so much. How could Damien continue to operate without the tacit approval of some very important men shielding him? If nothing else, someone had to be turning a blind eye. But he was saying it went further than that -- someone above Colonel Vance was providing Damien with materiel for sales. 

It hurt to hear his year-and-change of scrabbling to survive described as a blip in the natural order, erased like it never happened. 

Eliot felt his muscles engage, hydraulics whirring. He was going to go for his knife. One good throw and that sonuvabitch would be ended. 

“Just because this person had the temerity to think she could steal you does not change who you are to me.” 

“I can’t steal him, he’s a person.” Parker’s eyes were pure fire. Eliot’s fingers were sliding upwards so he could make a grab for the sheath in his lower back. 

Damien looked at her, pitying. “If he was a person, would this work?” Damien nodded to the muscle next to him. The man pressed a button and a harsh, mechanical noise filled the air. Eliot tried to wince away from it, but instead he suddenly felt curiously distant, like he was floating above his head, somehow. 

“Command codes: engaged. Come here,” Damien said, and Eliot watched himself walk over. He knew he didn’t want to do it, and he knew all the reasons why, but they didn’t seem to matter as much as they had before. 

What Damien was asking him was easy. It was everything else that seemed hard. Somehow, Eliot knew it hadn’t always been that way, but he couldn’t remember feeling different. 

“Eliot?” Parker asked. Damien ran a hand down Eliot’s arm and Eliot didn’t understand why Parker seemed upset. 

“So you see,” Damien said, “Eliot is not as much his own person as you believed. Did Eliot not tell you about this? Why didn’t you tell her, Eliot? You can answer.” 

“I didn’t know.” Eliot knew he was upset about that, but it was the type of upset that just pushed him further into not caring. He didn’t want to think about it, and he didn’t have to. He could just stand there. 

Damien opened his mouth wide, astonished. “That’s not why you completed those ugly little tasks your handlers asked you to do? You went out and came back just because they asked? I find it hard to believe you went on all of those missions out of what -- some misplaced sense of loyalty?” Eliot clenched his jaw as Damien tutted at him. Damien was ruining it, the floaty feeling. Eliot had been -- grateful, that Colonel Vance had helped him get away, grateful that he’d been thrown out in the street with no money, no home, no legal standing and forced to scrabble his way up. Vance had taken one step towards danger, but no others. Vance was still working for the military -- Eliot had looked it up. So clearly his morals hadn’t been troubled overmuch. 

Damien watched his reaction and seemed to be pleased with it. 

“Come now, Eliot. You had to have known they wouldn’t let you out into the world with some safeguards.” 

Eliot watched Parker slowly twitch towards the edge of her seat. No one was making him do anything about it, so he did nothing. 

Parker made her break, lunging for the door. 

“Eliot, stop her,” Damien said. Eliot didn’t move. Moving took energy and doing nothing was easy. Eliot was so done with doing things. 

Done with trying over and over, for what? The first time he’d swallowed unassisted Dr. Detmar had called it a ‘miracle of neuroplasticity.’ Like he was supposed to be impressed that he could do something a newborn baby could do. He had to work so hard to do every little thing and there was always something more he was expected to deal with. 

So he stood there. 

“Grab her,” Damien said, slightly urgent as Parker had almost cleared the door. Damien’s ineffectual thugs grabbed Parker’s arm, yanking it up behind her back, driving her up onto her toes. “I suppose they did warn me about this. The command codes were primarily to bring you into a more docile state,” Damien muttered. “It is no matter.” 

“Eliot,” Hardison said in his ear. “They’re hurting her.” Parker was struggling a bit to stay upright. Eliot knew that if she couldn’t keep her weight on her toes she could end up with a torn ligament or a dislocated shoulder, depending on if there was any yanking. She was making little noises as she struggled. 

Eliot didn’t want them to be hurting her, but he didn’t know what to do about it. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Hardison continued. “But I’m working on it -- I’m going to get you out. But I need you to help me.” There was no getting out, not for Eliot. “You just need to take out those guys.” _And then what?_ Hardison was still talking. “This isn’t you. Do you remember when we met? Your brain was melting out of your ears and you still had so much fight in you. I’d never seen anyone struggling that hard to stay alive.” Eliot wanted Hardison to stop talking. His words hurt. “And after? When you clearly needed our help, you kept trying to take care of us, keep us safe. You wouldn’t leave us if we were in trouble. Remember how you ran in here after Parker? Look at Parker now, she needs you.” Eliot was looking. He wanted to go to her, but it was so hard. “Don’t let them make you do something you regret.” 

And that was it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t finally saying ‘no, I give up, you can’t make me’. Every day since he’d been rebuilt he’d been living on someone else’s terms. Hardison had summed up his whole life. 

As much as he wanted to take a break, this wasn’t it. This was just the same shit in a different dress. And he was _sick_ of it. 

_Just wiggle the little finger,_ Eliot thought, and tried to do it. It felt like it came from a long way away, like he was sending a note via courier with an instruction. It was so slow that it was almost like the finger didn’t belong to him, and he had to concentrate so hard. But it twitched. 

When he let it stop he felt like his whole body wanted to collapse, like the amount of work that had taken had used up all of his reserves. But it wasn’t like that was new. He’d been here before, working on every part of his body to make it his again, and until a few days ago, he’d really felt like it was. 

So he gritted his teeth, and he pushed, and he engaged the muscle groups and he took a step. 

“Eliot, stop,” Damien said, but Eliot wasn’t listening. 

Instead, Eliot was struggling, and it made him so goddamn mad. It _shouldn’t_ be this hard. Other people had _made_ it this hard _._ And they had no right. 

Eliot was _furious._ And hey, there were some targets in front of him fully deserving the brunt of his justified pique. 

Now Eliot knew that when he got going he was fast. But he was still surprised to turn back from the crumpled bodies on the floor -- shattered collarbone and dislocated knee on the one, throat and kidney blows on the other, enough to keep him down for a while -- to see that Damien had done little more than open his mouth. His eyes were bugging out and Eliot had to wonder what he had expected. For Eliot to roll over and beg for a pet? To have a fiercely loyal killing machine? 

Loyalty was earned. It could be abused, once given, but Damien had never had it. 

Eliot leaned over and casually took the gun out of the holster of the guy with the shattered collarbone. He was groaning and tried to wriggle away when he saw Eliot’s face loom into view. Eliot wanted to say he wasn’t going to hurt him, but, well. 

He straightened and took three shots. Two into centre mass, one to finish, and it was over. Damien crumpled to the carpet. 

Mindful of the heat of the barrel, Eliot carefully put the safety on the gun and placed it on the floor. But after that he was done. Eliot followed the gun to the floor, collapsing until he was sitting, arms loosely linked around his knees. 

Hardison was still talking to him, but he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t thinking about very much anymore. The anger that had carried him over here had faded away and he was left with nothing behind it. The barren forest after the fire. 

Parker reached out and touched his hand. At some point, she’d knelt down in front of him. 

“Eliot, come on, we have to go,” she was saying. She was pulling at his arms, his shoulders. 

“Okay,” she said, and pulled herself in using his shoulders to press her forehead against his. “Come on,” she pleaded. He could feel her breath against his face. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but let her. 

She sighed. Then she gently unhooked the earpiece from his ear and leaned back, sliding it into her own. Eliot missed her warmth immediately. 

“Hardison, talk to me,” she said, businesslike. Then she was nodding. She stood up and grabbed at Eliot’s arm. He let her lift it, but made no move to get up. 

“You need to get up, Eliot,” she said, voice strangely gentle. “Yeah, I told you, he’s just sitting. No, he’s _not_ bleeding, come on, Hardison.” The change in tone was startling and it took Eliot a second to realise she wasn’t talking to him. 

She looked down at him. “Hardison says you have to get me outside. He’s in a van down the block but he can’t get closer because there are guards outside this room. He thinks this room is soundproofed but as soon as we open the door we’re going to have company.” 

Ok, so not time to rest yet. Eliot stood up. 

Parker let out a whoosh of breath. “Yeah, he’s standing.” 

Eliot gestured for her to stay back. She reached down to pick up the gun he'd left and he stopped her. “No guns,” he said. Guns were for killing, and Eliot had done his fair share. 

Then there was nothing left but the work. When Hardison said there were more guards, they were in fact barely more guards. One upstairs who looked more startled to see Eliot than anything else and was easily persuaded to stay down, and then two on the door. 

It wasn’t until Parker had hustled him into the back of the van and slammed the door, with Hardison leaving behind squeals and tire tracks, that something occurred to him. 

“You could have gotten out on your own, couldn’t you?” There weren’t any guards immediately outside, he could have come up with two ways for someone with her skills to sneak out, and that meant there were many more. 

“Oh, you talk now?” Hardison snapped then squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry, sorry, just a little stressed. So happy to have you back, man.” 

Parker just looked at him, brow furrowed. “Of course I could have, Eliot.” 

Eliot felt a weight in his chest that felt like betrayal. “You could have left me.” 

“No way, do I need to remind you about my Nana again?” 

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Parker called back. 

“That’s rich,” Hardison said, but he did what he was told. 

“What does that mean?” Parker whispered. It was Parker though, so it was loud. 

Eliot, who was fighting to breathe through the knot in his chest, didn’t respond. Hardison called back, “It means you’re a terrifying driver who should not be casting any stones.” 

Parker gasped. “Is that true?” 

Eliot managed a “Yeah,” rubbing on his sternum, but he got the words out. 

They made the rest of the drive in silence. 

*** 

Hardison picked a new hotel, classy this time, which they got away with since none of them were covered in blood like the last time, or being dragged while unconscious, like the time before. Eliot figured he could probably tell how bad the situation was by the quality of the accommodations. 

As soon as they got into the room Parker and Hardison reached for each other. He couldn’t tell who moved first, they just went from not touching to tangled up in the fiercest hug Eliot had ever seen. 

Eliot cleared his throat. “I’m going to head out then.” 

They broke apart. 

“What? Why?” Hardison sounded genuinely offended. It almost made Eliot laugh. 

“I thought maybe you were done manipulating me.” Unfortunately, the effort of holding back the laugh made Eliot sound like he was trying to hold something small inside his throat. 

“Are you seriously mad that we saved your life?” Hardison was now verging into pissed off, which did make Eliot laugh. 

“We’re not like them, Eliot.” Parker’s voice was solid. She’d squared to face him, feet planted. 

It made Eliot realise how much he’d braced himself, hands slightly raised, ready for the fight. “Really?” The words were an accusation. 

She tilted her chin up at him. “We presented the information to you in the way we best thought you’d listen. You decided what to do with it. It was your choice.” 

Eliot remembered Hardison pleading with him. He looked away. 

“You could have just gone.” This was still bugging him. “I get that Hardison has his moral code, and that makes him stupid, but what’s your excuse?” 

“I don’t get asked to do good things, Eliot,” Parker said and Eliot hated to hear a wobble in her voice. “But helping you was good. I didn’t know that I would like it, but I did, and I’d do it again.” 

How could Parker say helping him was good? “You don’t know me. Neither of you know me. We just met.” _I don’t know me._ All this time, Eliot had insisted he was human because his mind was all his. But it clearly wasn’t. Who knew what else was up there. 

Hardison and Parker looked at each other and Eliot hated it. He was right there. 

“Well, I can’t speak for Parker, but the guy I met over the last few days, I liked him. He’s grumpy, and funny, and a fantastic cook, and medium-good in the sack. I don’t need to know your whole life history to want to know that guy better.” 

And that, that was too much. Eliot couldn’t look at that head on. Falling over himself and dying and having a mini-breakdown was not the ideal way he’d present himself. 

Hardison kept talking. “And I’m sorry, but a dude who’s ultimate trigger word is ‘someone needs your help’ is not the monster you make him out to be.” 

Eliot consciously relaxed his jaw. He could do some serious damage if he didn’t. 

Eliot looked over at Parker, “Parker?” But then again, he hadn’t known Parker very long either and here he was looking at her for a sanity check like she held all the answers. 

She shrugged. “What he said.” She pointed a finger at him. “Stop making me think about my feelings, it’s itchy.” 

He laughed, a real one this time. 

“Well, since that’s settled,” Hardison said. “Bring it in.” Hardison made a reeling motion with his hands which Eliot wanted to think was ridiculous, but instead he just went and let Hardison wrap his arms around him. 

**Author's Note:**

> In this story:  
> \- Eliot has many bad feelings about becoming a cyborg and his loss of bodily autonomy  
> \- discussions of semi-consensual medical procedures  
> \- extensive rehab and physical therapy  
> \- Eliot is implanted with command codes that he is unaware of that function as mind control  
> \- Eliot dissociates  
> \- prior to the story, Eliot is sold (but is never owned by anyone in the story)


End file.
